LONG BEACH — Last year, Ford Motor suspended production of an electric pickup truck, shut down a battery factory in Kentucky and booked a $20 billion loss to account for its diminished plans.
Then, last month, the senior executive who oversaw development of this new technology left the company.
But Ford executives insist that those setbacks do not mean that the company has given up on electric vehicles. As evidence, they point to a former warehouse in Long Beach.
There, a team lead by Alan Clarke, a Tesla veteran, is building a new electric pickup truck that will go on sale next year, the first of many models designed to compete on price and technology with the best cars sold by Chinese automakers.
Ford has begun lifting the secrecy that has shrouded the project and last week allowed reporters to tour its Electric Vehicle Development Center in Long Beach.
Clarke acknowledged in an interview with The New York Times that last year was tough on morale for his young team, which includes former employees of Tesla, Apple and other tech companies. Sales collapsed after Congress eliminated a $7,500 tax credit for the purchase of electric cars. The federal government also gutted regulations that put pressure on carmakers to sell zero-emission vehicles.
Clarke is aiming for the vehicle to sell for $30,000, or about the same as a Ford Maverick, a small pickup. That would be a milestone, bringing the purchase price of an electric vehicle in line with a comparable gasoline-powered truck. The electric truck, which will be able to travel 300 miles on a charge, will be a lot cheaper to fuel than similar gasoline models.
The vehicle may arrive just in time. Electric-vehicle sales are soaring in much of the world and showing signs of hitting bottom in the United States as gasoline prices rise because of the war with Iran.
Ford has not yet shown a complete prototype of its pickup. The company says it will have a streamlined design for energy efficiency while having more interior space than a Toyota RAV4. It will be the first Ford model designed from the ground up to be electric.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.